Lovebugs and Ligustrums (plus OTHER crap…)

(With apologies to Jennifer. I really, really didn’t see your ‘equation’ post until after I wrote this.)

Could I BE any more miserable? I mean, is it humanly possible? Oh, I suppose I could be. And I guess if I looked out of the vacuum I call my life, I’d see there are probably many more miserable people out there. But I really don’t know if they’re as pathetic as I am.

You see, I’m sick. I’m not sure what it is. This virus-sinus-thingie-cold-crud has been wreaking havoc on the Nerd family for about a month. Mr. Cool missed almost an entire week of school. Mr. Nerd, who never misses work, missed four days. Miss Priss was out for three. And now, the nasty bug has come to roost right here in Florence Nightingale’s head and chest. And nasty it is.

Compounding the nastiness is the fact that it is ligustrum season here in the deep south. No fouler a shrub has ever existed, people. Smelly, downright stinky, and bringing with it hay fever and honeybees. The smell reminds me of my childhood. Trouble is, and I’m about to go off on one hell of a tangent here, I used to associate the smell of ligustrums with the arrival of my most feared and dreaded insect - the buck moth caterpillar. You’ve seen ‘em. Black, spiny, fat and scary. Scary as hell. How scary, you say? Well let me tell you how scary.

I. Am. Terrified.

So terrified of them that I was the weirdo girl in the Quadrangle all four-plus years of college. Come caterpillar season, I carried an umbrella. Yep. Not a parasol, where I could at least have faked it and pretended I was going all Scarlet O’Hara southern girl. An umbrella. Because the LSU campus is one of the most gorgeous campuses. And that’s because it’s filled with hundred-year Live Oaks. But at this time of the year, those beautiful trees are filled with gazillions of those effin’ caterpillars. And they drop from the trees onto the backpacks, shoulders, or heads of unsuspecting southern belles. And then those unsuspecting southern belles find those nasty squirmy wormy stingy things — usually when they sting poor unsuspecting southern belles.

Phew. Anyway. So as a child, because the ligustrums bloomed at precisely the time the caterpillars made their annual arrival, I thought that was what the caterpillars smelled like. And to this day, when I smell those foul flowers (if you can call them that), I think of creepy crawly stingy things casting a creepy crawly stingy cloud over the otherwise beautiful spring weather we’re enjoying.

Soooo. Ligustrums mean caterpillars. But we aren’t done here. What’s the one insect I despise as much as caterpillars? C’mon, guys. You’ve been around long enough to know. Tiff should have had it within two seconds. Kristie knows because she’s probably already got one in her mouth. Yep. You got it. Lovebugs. And I’ve posted about my loathing of those horrendous insects at least twice — here and here. The big infestation is in September. But we always get a ‘teaser’ in late April, early May. You know, to compound my misery. So the equation of my life becomes something like this:

Miserable cold/virus bug + ligustrums x caterpillars x lovebugs = MY LIFE.

So, I ask you.

Could I be any more miserable? Your resounding “no’s” are welcome and expected in my comments.

This Was Almost Too Easy

The inimitable Kate has tagged me, and while I have managed to ignoreavoid most of the tags that have come my way recently, this one was, as my title indicates, almost too easy.

The basic challenge is to write your life story in six words, as described in this NPR story. (I really think I have to pick up a copy of this book.)

So I set out on my six-word task. And I came up with several.

There was this: “Ridding the world of errant apostrophes.”

Or this: “Is this all there is? Damn.”

Then this: “Sarcasm. Not just for breakfast anymore.” (This one, of course, screamed ‘pick me, pick me!’ until I decided that I’m not a big fan of the joined ‘anymore’ to begin with, so it had to fall.)

In the end though, there was really no question. My six-word memoir?

“Still here. Still pointing and laughing.”

So now we come to the part you’ve all been waiting for. The tag. Don’t ignore my tags like I’ve ignored yours. Here’s what you do:

• Write your own six-word memoir.
• Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post.
• Tag five more, including links.

The lucky five, in no particular order:

Jennifer

Tracy Lynn

Tiff

Baino

Karen

Now. Get to gettin’.  (You’re all welcome to consider yourselves tagged as well and to post your six-word-memoir either in your own blog or in my comments.  That means you, Kritty.)

Six Random Things*

(*that would never make a full post on their own)

Game of the Day: Ok, it caught my attention because Ray-Ray is Mr. Nerd’s nickname, and then it kept my attention because the little guys are adorable, but is this not the strangest little game EVER?

My Oprah Moment: You still have four days to grab this and read it (if you haven’t been fortunate enough to have found it and fallen in love with it on your own) before the movie airs on Lifetime (this Saturday). I cannot begin to tell you how much I love love LOVE this book, and an early review of the movie says that they stayed pretty close to the story when then made the movie. But please read it. And hurry. No matter how good the movie is, it will never capture the book. Trust me.

Just What Does Wordnerd Write About Anyway? If you were to judge this here blog by the most common search strings that people use to get here, you’d find that (a) people really need a good recipe for jambalaya or (b) there were more kids than just moi that heard that if you flip a baby over you’ll flip his liver.

My Son the Criminal: I got my first scary warning e-mail the other day from my internet provider. Bill wasn’t late. Rates weren’t going up. Nope. None of that. Seems that a certain 16-year-old living in my household caught the attention of the security guys at a certain HUGE-ASS network, who happened to discover that my sweet baby boy was somehow sharing some of said network’s “property”. I can categorically deny that any such “property” exists on any computer in this household. I know because I sat there and watched him delete it just know. Um, just so you know? These people mean business.

Crisis Intervention. The other day, my appointment book (read: work bible) went missing from my desk. Really, really went missing. I searched my office for hours. I looked everywhere I might have fileditthrownitawaytosseditatsomeone. HOURS. Never could find it. I hardly slept that night, wondering how on earth I was going to recreate that book (you’d have to know my job in order to understand just how effin’ important that book is). The next morning, I got two phone calls at home. The first call was from an investigator from another court system. And when he identified himself and started out by saying “I’m involved in an investigation involving you and …” I honestly, truthfully thought he had been contacted regarding locating my damn book. You know, because the world freakin’ revolves around ME. (The second call was from my office — seems the appointment book had been inadvertently picked up by the rep from the office furniture company that I met with early that day.) Back to reality.

But At Least I’m Not Kristie: So I get an e-mail the other day from my BFF Kristie, and she’s telling me this story, and instead of offering my sympathy and asking if she’s okay, I steal it in order to make fun of her on the internet:

Oh, I have to tell you what I did yesterday. I worked in the yard with J. all morning. I went out later for something and noticed the garbage can had fallen over. I went to pick it up and stepped on the rake hoe thing. It flapped up and the handle knocked me in the head so hard that I thought I had broken my collar bone and my ear was numb all night. Now I have a large knot behind my ear. It was so Looney Toons I can’t even believe I did that!

Because I’m just that kind of friend.

Peace out.

Your Very Own Map of Your Life

Dear Miss Priss,

Today I ceased to be cool. Today I made you mad. Today, sadly, I realized that our relationship will now begin changing more and more. It seems like just the other day that you looked to me for everything, and everything I did, and said, and believed, was good enough for you.

That is no more.

So with that realization, I’m providing you with a ‘map’ of your life as I think it will lay out over the next two decades. I hope you refer to it from time to time. Something tells me it’ll be pretty darn accurate.

Your life, and our relationship, will now be laid out in five-year increments. The first five years, from now until you’re 18, you will spend disliking me, for the most part. You will call me overbearing, overprotective, and judgmental. You will remind me day in and day out that ‘everyone else’ gets to do whatever it is that I’m not letting you do. You will remind me that every other parent is cooler than I am. And I will tell you that you are right.

The next five years you will spend trying to get as far away from me and your dad — both literally and figuratively — as possible. You will explore horizons that I don’t even want to think about. I can only pray that you use good judgment and remember that everything has a consequence.

The third five-year increment will be spent missing me. You may not admit it right away, even then. But you will miss me. And you’ll need me. Here is where you’ll begin the steps towards becoming a ‘real grownup.’ And those steps can be painful at times. From time to time, you’ll pick up the phone, call me, and cry. And I’ll be there. I promise.

Lastly, from about 28 to about 34, you’ll begin, slowly, to understand where I was coming from so many years ago. And, as you start thinking about your own family, and your own children, you’ll appreciate me. I hope.

And I hope that someday you will thank me.

Because if you think for one minute that I am going to drop a thirteen-year-old CHILD off at a “SEVEN-BANDS!!!-ALL NIGHT!!!-ROCK CONCERT!!!!”???

You. Are. Out. Of. Your. Effin’. Mind.

Love, Mom.

Dear Brenda…And Everyone Else Who’s Wondering

Where am I? I’m here. But not here, if you know what I mean. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged on, clicked the ‘write’ tab, and stared. Throughout my day, there are probably five to ten times that I think of something that I should write about. There are easily five to ten things that piss me off to the level of needing to rant incoherently. There are, at least, five to ten things that sadden me, anger me, or tickle me to death. (Southern expression, y’all. Sorry.) But I click on, and the brain clicks off.

I’m not sure what it is. The stress at work has leveled off considerably. Home life is chugging along with nary a problem. Well, nary a problem worth writing about, anyway. (Nary. Strange word, no? Does anyone use that word north of the M-D line? Does anyone younger than eighty use it?)

Anyway, I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I won’t even try.  But I’m here.  And I’ll try to come back with a little more frequency.  (As a matter of fact, something just occurred to me that you guys really should hear about.  So I’ll work on getting that to you next week.)  Because there is really no reason for me to still be gone.

Can’t blame the writers’ strike. Even they came back.

So My Glass Started Out Half Empty…

When I started writing this post (over the weekend), I was really, really angry. So angry that I logged in and started typing furiously. But I didn’t get to complete it right away. And I’m so glad. Because now it’s a different post.

Let me explain.

I started out angry because it was Saturday. And I was deep in the throes of collegiate basketball on tv. Just pure excitement. On Saturday night, one of the ‘big ones’ was on. UNC vs. Duke. (Some of you may have heard...) While I’m a true-blue-purple&gold fan most of the time, this is by far one of the matchups I look forward to. And in primetime? It doesn’t get much better.

But this game was different. Because despite the excitement of the fans in the arena, there was a big black cloud. Because despite the excitement of the fans in the arena, there was a moment of silence for Eve Carson, student body president, who had been murdered days before.

To make things worse, I had just found out that my niece was a high-school classmate of Lauren Burk, another college student who had been murdered within hours of Eve Carson. And my niece was driving in from college to attend her memorial.

So yes, I was angry. Angry at the thug mentality that prevails on the streets and makes anyone and everyone fair game whether they have $10 or $10,000 on them.

The post was ugly, and angry, and unlike what, and who, I usually am. It sat in my drafts until today.

Today, when I finally found some time to open up my drafts and possibly hit the ‘publish’ button, I felt a little better.

I’m still angry. I’m still mad as hell. But I received an e-mail earlier today. And it’s one that I had received previously. I started to delete it, but knowing what it was, I decided it might be a good idea to take a second look.

I’m so glad I did. I don’t know how many of you have had the opportunity to view this in the past. But it’s worth a look. Or a second look if you were lucky enough to see it the first time around. More importantly, it’s worth a listen.

After I listened to his lecture again, I searched the internet to see if I could get an update on Gary Pausch’s health. And I truly expected to find that he had died. But he hasn’t.

He is still fighting.

This weekend, I read an article about how your attitude — whether you face life in a negative or a positive manner — has an incredible impact on longevity. I’ve always been a big believer in this, and more and more research is backing up what I have always believed to be true. And the man that delivered his ‘last lecture’ is a testament to that belief.

So instead of this being an angry post, it’s one filled with hope. Hope that everyone realizes that life is full of the unexpected. You never know if you’re going to be the next Eve, Lauren, or Gary.

I’ve always wondered if I wanted to know when I was going to die. Frankly, I still don’t know the answer to that. But I do know this. We are all going to go. Somehow. Someday.

And we need to live each day a little more fully for that reason.

If I’d Known You All Were Comin…

 

… I’d have baked a cake!!!

Dudes! Thanks for all the birthday love!  You guys really, truly made my day!